The Civil War On Drugs - 1310 Words

The prison system in the United States is broken. There are many reasons why it is broken, but the main source of the problem is from the privatization of prisons. The United States has a capitalistic economy, which means our society driven by acquiring capital. Every person’s goal is to make money and live the â€Å"American Dream†, including big corporations. Since privatizing markets like healthcare, television, and banking worked for their favor, companies realized that prisons could produce large sums of capital. The war on drugs solidified that belief. Since the start of Ronald Reagan s â€Å"War on Drugs† in the 1970’s, prisons have been privatized and exploited for monetary gain. The public thinks that this so called â€Å"War on Drugs† is†¦show more content†¦Another problem with privatized prisons is that they do not focus on rehabilitating prisoners. There are no preventative measures enforced to keep felons from going back to pr ison once they get out. Since keeping prisons full makes more money, the private prisons plan to keep them full. The prison system is broken and it needs to be fixed. Our class collaborated and made a five point plan that we think will fix the majority of the problems that privatized prisons have caused. Our first point is to â€Å"abolish all policies and laws in place that discriminate against those that have been convicted. We want the judicial system to lead with fairness toward all†(1). Our second point is to â€Å"protect the interests of prisoners [by letting the federal government run prisons] and not private institutions [so that inmates safety is not sacrificed] for the sake of corporate profit†(2). Our third point is to â€Å"equip prisoners with the skills that they need to be successful when they get out of prison through correspondence programs, rehabilitation programs, and ridding the public of the negative stigma that prisoners carry†(3). Our fou rth point is to put â€Å"programs in place to prevent at risk communities from being forced into prison. This can be enforced by putting police through programs to teach them how to catch criminals without racial profiling. We want programs in at risk communities that teach skills